'Scream for Me, Africa!': How the continent is reinventing heavy metal music
Skinflint. Vulvodyinia. Metal Orizon. Wrust. Demorogoth Satanum.
You probably haven't heard of these names, but they're just some of the many African heavy metal bands featured in Edward Banchs' new book, Scream for Me, Africa! Heavy Metal Identities in Post-Colonial Africa. The book examines the hard rock and metal scenes in Botswana, Kenya, Ghana, South Africa and Togo to understand why artists and fans flock to this extreme subculture — and how bands have turned this predominantly white, Western musical genre into something uniquely African.
Africans have been fans of popular metal bands like Metallica, Motörhead and Iron Maiden since the 1970s, says Banchs, 43, a Pittsburgh, Pa.-based researcher and freelance writer who calls himself a "lifelong metalhead since I was in
